


Breaking Down

by catteo



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:39:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catteo/pseuds/catteo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt 'I have gathered that the moments that shaped me were the ones that tested my faith'</p>
<p>Implied major character death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [forcynics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forcynics/gifts).



She just _sits_ there. Staring and silent. A look of accusation on her face. Stefan tries to apologise in a million different ways. The words leave his mouth in the wrong order, tumbling over each other in their haste to escape him. Nothing makes sense to him any more. In the centre of his being, where a heartbeat used to sit, is an ache. A darkness. It sends tendrils out into the space where his soul once was. Congeals there. Wraps itself around the last vestige of his hope and snuffs it out. He can taste the bitter tang of broken dreams and promises in the back of his throat. Like blood. Turns his face towards the night and prays that this time he can find the strength to move on.

His brother leaves. Says he can’t stand to be in the same country as Stefan, let alone the same house. It hurt more the last time. They’re both older now, and wiser. The ties that bind them may stretch almost to breaking point, but they’ll never snap. He trusts that. It was a girl that almost ripped them apart the last time. Their father before that. Their brotherhood strengthens every time it’s tested. Damon was the only one to ever pull him back from the edge. He wonders if it’s foolish now to think that things can ever be the same. Sits alone with his memories and thinks of all the other times he was left behind. The times that he wasn’t.

The other version of the girl he lost stands in front of him. Head tilted in something that looks like pity. She tells him she’s sorry for the thing that he has become. That she knows that sometimes the only person you can hate is yourself. He tells her she’s lying. That she _never_ hated herself. He pretends that he can’t see the understanding and sorrow in her eyes. Katherine’s hand lingers for a moment on his arm as she walks away. For a second he lets himself believe that nothing has changed. That if he closes his eyes he can be the man he was before they met. He knows he’s just lying to himself. Fears that this time she’ll leave for good. Has to believe that he’s wrong.

She just sits there. Silent and staring. No expression on her face at all really. He’s put her pieces back together the only way he knows how. With heartache and regret and broken promises. With tears on his face, and the bitter taste of her death in his mouth. He whispers his apologies into the darkness. Swears that the next time he won’t make the same mistakes.


End file.
